Correlation Does Not Imply Causation

I was working my way through the Book of Acts recently, and Philip really caught my attention. Philip is awesome!

Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city. [Acts 8:5-8]

Philip has some of the coolest stories. One day God said, “Go over there,” and he met a senior administration official from Ethiopia, a guy who has come almost 2000 miles to worship God, who had questions about the Messiah from his readings in Isaiah. Phil introduces him to Jesus and the guy wants to get baptized in the first puddle they pass.

When they come up out of the water, God transports Philip to Azotus, a coastal town 30 miles north. That’s just plain cool.

 

As I was enjoying the stories about Philip, my mind recalled, “This is Philip the rookie Deacon, not Philip the apostle.” Besides, these are the actions of a young and enthusiastic revivalist, not a senior church leader.

I considered, “Some of those deacons did some pretty great things!”

And as I was thinking this, it seemed that Father whispered, “Correlation is not causation.”

OK, that caught me off guard. I waited. He didn’t say any more, but I realized I was correlating “Philip is a deacon,” with “Philip has some awesome God stories!” 

Both statements are true, but they are not necessarily connected. Just because Phil was a deacon, just because Phil served widows does not explain Phil showing up in the middle of Azotus, dripping wet from the baptism, with no wet footprints behind him. (No wonder people listened to his preaching!)

The principle strikes me as much bigger than Phil’s wet footprints in the desert. 

Just because Jesus spit in the dirt and rubbed the resulting mud in a blind guy’s eyes does not mean that spitting in dirt is the way to heal blindness. [See John 9:6]

Just because Jesus was the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” does not mean that God set Adam & Eve up to fail.

I’ll bet you can think of some other correlations that we are tempted to think of as cause-and-effect stories.

On the other hand, this principle does not prohibit deacons from doing amazing things in God, and does not prohibit God from healing blind eyes with mud. God knowing what’s going to happen does not imply that God caused it to happen.

It seems to me that we’ve been too darned lazy in our faith. We see two things together and we’re quick think “Cause and effect!” And if I’m honest, too many Bible teachers are quick to point out such correlations, because they preach well and because digging deeper is kind of a lot of work! And so we just believe them.

So this is going to be another point in my ongoing story of “Believers need to think for themselves, durn it!” We need to think things through with the insight of Holy Spirit more than … well … more than short-cutting the process.

The One to Whom I Will Give This Piece of Bread

Jesus was pretty well known for obtuse answers to simple questions. People were regularly befuddled when he answered their questions. We could look at the places where he confuses people.

But he kind of goes to some strange lengths when he's outing Judas as his betrayer, during the last supper.

John describes it in chapter 13 of his biography.

"8 “I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me.’

19 “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am.

20 Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”

21 After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”

22 His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant.

23 One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him.

24 Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”

25 Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”

26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.”

28 But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him.

I've often wondered why Jesus was so cryptic about it. I was listening to it again this afternoon when it hit me: the answer is Genesis 1, isn't it?

In Genesis 1, God creates the whole universe in six days, and he does it by speaking. He says a thing, and then the thing is created.

In John 1, it's clarified that it was Jesus that was doing the speaking. And here, Jesus is sitting around the table, talking with his Boys, and he's NOT speaking the thing that every one of them is asking: Who is it.

Today it struck me that if Jesus had said, "Judas is going to betray me," then the power of Genesis 1:3 (and Mark 11:14) would be released & Judas might have been controlled by the creative words of the Creator declaring his future.

Jesus was carefully and intentionally leaving Judas's will untouched by supernatural power of the Creator's declaration, so he dances around the subject, and finally answers the question with actions, not with words. (And that is the closest thing to an interpretive dance in the Scriptures, I suppose.)

That is, by the way, the primary tactical difference between a legitimately prophetic word and good wishes: the word that is spoken from God, that is the true prophetic word, carries not only information about God's will in the circumstances, but also carries the power to cause it to come about.

We can discuss (and I have already strained my brain thinking about) whether Judas's God-given free will would triumph over Jesus God-empowered words: did Judas really have the free will to choose not to betray Jesus?

I think that is exactly the reason for the interpretive dance: Jesus wanted to leave no room for that accusation for the generations to follow. Jesus could NOT have influenced Judas with his words, since he didn't use his words to discuss Judas.

This shouts to me of God's impressive forethought, of course, but also of his remarkable kindness. By handing Judas a bite of dinner, he eliminates squabbles among his children for centuries to come. (Not that we haven't found other things to squabble about....)

Church Leaders and Pruning Vines

The other weekend, I discovered that while I had been out of town, my tomato vines had gotten completely out of control. Instead of neat and tidy plants producing lots of delicious fruit, they had turned into raging green monsters that were producing more and more out-of-control raging green vines.

I picked up my pruning shears and went to town. Before I was done, I had hauled away two large garbage cans full of unfruitful (or barely fruitful) vines. I reflected on a couple of things.

First, I realized that by not pruning the tomatoes gently and regularly, now I had to prune them fairly harshly, and the result showed: instead of a well-balanced fruitful plant, when I was done, I had plants with great gaps in their branches, but at least they had the potential for growing some fruit now.

Second, I remembered our Lord's promise: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” John 15:2. The promise of his care for me (more consistent than my care for my tomatoes, I assume) in order that I might bear fruit.

Then this week, I saw that while I had been tending my tomatoes and weeding my garden and harvesting my garlic, my grapevine had gotten completely out of control as well. Another raging green monster, oh boy.

I picked up my pruning shears (and a stepladder this time) and went to work. And I thought about the lessons of pruning the tomatoes, and realized that those lessons applied here, too.

But I learned another lesson with the grapes. Unlike with the tomatoes, I really didn't know what I was doing with pruning the grapes. This was beyond my training, beyond my experience, and I knew it. Furthermore, I realized that while I was doing the best I knew how to do, the reality was that the pruning was harsh and probably excessive. And I knew it was my fault, but the grapevine paid the price for my ignorance.

It was at that point that I heard Father whisper, “You’ve just described a very large number of pastors, Son.” I can tell you I paused to think about that one for a good while.

And as I considered it, I realized that pastors are a lot like gardeners: their values are for the nurture and development of the garden entrusted to them. But occasionally, someone in their care gets excited and starts growing out of control. In my own history, I remember a staid little Presbyterian congregation with a dozen individuals stepping out of the pastor’s influence to participate in the Jesus People Movement.

We discovered intimate relationship with Jesus; we discovered the Holy Spirit; we discovered that the Bible really is interesting and practical. We got terribly excited.

And the pastors didn’t know what to do with this revival. This was beyond their training, beyond their experience, and they knew it. And as a result, their responses to our untidy, out-of-control enthusiasm was harsh and probably excessive.

And Father pointed out to me that they actually realized their limitations, they regretted the damage they were doing, but they had to do something! We really were turning into out-of-control, raging monsters (the fact that we were teenagers didn’t help matters any).

But suddenly I was more sympathetic for those pastors, and for pastors today that are dealing with congregants who get excited and start growing much faster, maybe even irresponsibly.

Some of them are panicking, dealing with situations beyond the training of their seminary or Bible school. They feel (whether rightly or wrongly) that they need to bring that raging, out-of-control enthusiasm under control, and they respond more harshly, more damagingly than they would if they had more experience (or better training).

Some of the church leaders you and I have encountered (and it’s not all pastors, is it?) have been threatened by our excitement, our enthusiasm, our vigorous change. That doesn’t mean we quit growing, of course. And it doesn't mean we get angry, take our ball and go away, either.

Some of these leaders will never understand. Some will, like the leaders of Jesus' time, declare, “If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.” [John 11:48] Some will wish they could throw it all away and join us.

But a whole lot of leaders will be open to learning more, even if we scare them, even if it’s difficult. I’m encouraged to work on building bridges, so the whole Body can grow.